Panel 5
Vestibulum purus. Duis nec odio. Praesent sed nulla ac nibh luctus bibendum. Pellentesque fringilla, leo et rhoncus porta, turpis nulla sollicitudin ligula, et varius ipsum lectus eget ligula. Donec diam.
Panel 1
Maecenas placerat lacus sed lectus. Quisque lorem tortor, gravida sit amet, ornare a, interdum id, urna. Suspendisse massa est, dictum eu, vestibulum et, ultricies id, dolor. Vivamus turpis est, auctor et, imperdiet tincidunt, sodales vel, nisl. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Nunc ligula. Integer tincidunt nibh eget lacus. Proin porta sem ac turpis. Mauris iaculis enim id neque.
A Test Panel Thingy
It's quite a lot of trouble editing this. Could be more than it's worth.
Panel 3
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Vivamus porta tortor sed metus. Nam pretium. Sed tempor. Integer ullamcorper, odio quis porttitor sagittis, nisl erat tincidunt massa, eu eleifend eros nibh sollicitudin est.
Panel 4
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Vivamus porta tortor sed metus. Nam pretium. Sed tempor. Integer ullamcorper, odio quis porttitor sagittis, nisl erat tincidunt massa, eu eleifend eros nibh sollicitudin est. Nulla dignissim. Mauris sollicitudin, arcu id sagittis placerat.
Panel 5
Vestibulum purus. Duis nec odio. Praesent sed nulla ac nibh luctus bibendum. Pellentesque fringilla, leo et rhoncus porta, turpis nulla sollicitudin ligula, et varius ipsum lectus eget ligula. Donec diam.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Spiderman 3
Don’t get me wrong, Spiderman 3 is a great view, and ensures the franchise remains the best of the recent superhero film outings. But at almost three hours long, and with multiple story arcs and character developments, it’s left me wondering whether cinema is the right medium for superheroes. Certainly the special effects look good; but in the modern era of large plasma and LCD screens, they would look good in the lounge room as well.
Tobey MacGuire returns as Peter Parker, the self-described nerd who moonlights as New York’s friendly neighbourhood Spiderman. Life is good for Peter – Spiderman is universally popular; he’s doing well at college; and he’s still with the love of his life, Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst). But as always, pride comes before a fall, and it’s not too long before Peter has to face an old enemy in the shape of his friend Harry – who returns to avenge his father’s death from movie one, having taken over the role of the “Green Goblin” – and a new one, in the shape-shifting form of Flint Marko, aka “The Sandman”, a petty crook who accidentally gets zapped by a de-molecularisation machine (as you do), and can now turn his body into sand. Thrown into the mix is an alien symbiot called Venom - a parasite which first infects Peter (becoming “Black-Suited Spiderman”), before taking over the body of Eddie Brock’s – Peter’s new rival photographer – when Spiderman rejects it.
Confused? We also have Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard), the Chief of Police’s daughter who’s also a classmate of Peter’s and Eddie Brock’s girlfriend; J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmonds), the newspaper editor and Peter’s boss who’s still trying to discredit Spiderman; and let’s not forget Mary Jane herself, whose acting career has hit the skids but her superhero boyfriend seems too busy to bear. Oh yeah, and Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) is still around to dole out words of wisdom, and to try to put the breaks on Peter’s anger when they find out Uncle Ben’s real killer (from movie one), turns out to be someone different – someone who just happens to have strayed in front of a de-molecularisation machine….
With all these stories, Spiderman 3 needs to be 170 minutes long, and while the onscreen action barrels along, and the non-action pieces keep you interested, you do still feel it from time to time – hence my proposition that the Spiderman franchise could have worked well as a TV series, with time enough to explore. Another reason is that the movie changes tone several times – including a bizarre but hilarious screwball comedy routine that shows just how the Venom suit is affecting Peter Parker. Those who know a young person afflicted by “emo” disease will snigger at the fact that Peter seems to turn into one every time he dons the black suit.
The performances are solid, with MacGuire impleccably playing the nerd whose pride makes way for a big fall, and Dunst the conflicted and disillusioned actor. James Franco turns an amnesiac Harry into a wonderfully sympathetic character – a true hero by film’s end. The two new villains – Thomas Haden Church as Flint Marko/Sandman and Topher Grace as Eddie Brock/Venom – are both fantastic. And as always, geek favourite Bruce Campbell turns in another stellar cameo appearance.
The action sequences are extremely well done; but the CGI highlight is when the Marko, having been reduced to a pile of sand, first tries to gather himself back into human form to stand up, walk, and wrap his fingers around a locket containing a picture of his beloved daughter. It’s a very human moment in a completely constructed shot. There’s a bit of all-American bravado – but with Raimi, you can never quite tell how much of it is tongue-in-cheek. The end satisfactorily closes the first “trilogy” of Spiderman stories, but leaves it open enough to future films. Above all, it insists upon the redemptive power of forgiveness, something which Raimi probably feels in this day and age, which could all use a lot more.
Spiderman 3 then is another fine piece of superhero work; and while it will be a long time before superheroes fade from our cinema screens, it will be interesting to see how long it will be before more pop up on TV. “Look out! Here comes… ?”
Monday, April 23, 2007
300
This is a film all about images - and the digital effects are breath-taking in some sequences. The battle scenes are gory, but the fighting is choreographed like a ballet, in another tribute to the physicality of the soldiers. The god-king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) arrives in a wonderfully over-the-top chariot, borne on the shoulders of hundreds of his slaves. He's at least 2.5 metres tall, and is dressed like Boy George after an accident with a piercing gun. He promises riches and power (and a fair few nearly naked women) to those who would join him; the steadfast and righteous Leonidas is stinging in his eventual rebuke. There's also battle elephants, rhinos, ninjas, grenades and a parade of psychopathically violent freaks thrown in to take on the Spartans. That's when you know historical accuracy really doesn't matter much in this version of events.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Reign Over Me
The latest comedian to stretch his dramatic chops is Adam Sandler, best known previously for playing rather "simple" characters in such teen-friendly comedies as Billy Madison, The Waterboy, Big Daddy and Little Nicky. (Although I must admit to being a long-time fan of the aggro golfing movie, Happy Gilmore). His last film, Click, attempted some drama, but that fell somewhat flat with audiences, who were expecting Sandler's character to spend the whole 90 minute running time using his powerful remote control to freeze-frame jogging women so he could ogle their heaving bosoms. That's what the advertising suggested, anyway.
Reign Over Me appears to have learned a lesson from Click, and has been marketed as a drama from day one. It's a step in the direction of drama for Sandler, but there's still too much inadvertent "funny-ness"to really hit home as a serious piece. It also suffers from being far too long, having yet another tedious support role for a woman, and for giving equal weight to the story of the other main character, played by Don Cheadle.
Sandler plays Charlie Fineman, a former dentist whose wife and three daughters died in one of the planes that hit the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001. Faced with such an enormous trauma, Charlie's reaction was to switch off, quit work, never talk about his family, and even regress to a younger, pre-family version of himself. We enter Charlie's life through Don Cheadle's character Alan Johnson - and Charlie's former roommate at dental college. Alan has a loving family and a good practice, but an unfortunate habit of attracting crazy but beautiful female stalkers, and a growing mid-life crisis. His wife Janeane (Jada Pinkett-Smith in a cardboard cut-out "wifey" role) and two daughters are great, but he yearns for the lost freedom and silliness of his younger days, which he rediscovers through Charlie.
The main problem is a man approaching middle-age and feeling a bit of ennui in no way equals the tragedy of a man losing his entire family in the most infamous act of terrorism in recent times. Writer/director Mike Binder seems to have decided that telling a story solely from Charlie's perspective would be hard for the audience to relate to. Fair enough. But the focus on Alan and his family takes away from the magnitude of Charlie's situation. It also adds to the length of the film, which was always going to be long, because you can't just magically fix someone like Charlie, who's been out of his mind for a good five years. At 124 minutes, it isn't even that long, but it feels like it due to the numerous buddy scenes, which lead to psychologist scenes, which lead to courtroom scenes, and so on.
That's not to say there are no good moments: Cheadle is a great actor, and his performance here is testament to that; and Saffron Burrows - a rail thin former model - is surprisingly entertaining as his crazy stalker with problems of her own. Liv Tyler is a bit wide-eyed and vacant as psychologist Angela, but she conveys a good sense of understanding and caring. And Sandler himself has some nice little moments - especially the inevitable scene where he breaks through the fog and talks about his family and what happened to them for the first time. However he's incapable of escaping the raspy, sometimes slurry speaking style that so defines his "simple" characters from those movies listed above. It may be why a group of teenagers sitting up the back at my screening kept guffawing when really it wasn't the time or place. There certainly are moments of comedy, and Sandler has some funny lines, but there's a lot more going on with his character, and with the movie in general and tossing out gags doesn't seem to do it justice.
In summation - a solid attempt at a drama that's sold a bit short by trying to keep fans of Sandler's comedies happy. Let's not even get on to Jada Pinkett-Smith's role of the "good but nagging wife at home".... good to see Hollywood writing complex and intelligent roles for women, isn't it?
Thursday, April 12, 2007
The Lives of Others
The film is set in early 1980s East Berlin, with the secret police force known as the Stasi at the height of its powers. Almost everyone is either under surveillance, or informants. One of the Stasi's best spies is Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), a man who can best be described as blank. Tall, thin, expressionless, dressed only in drab grey, Wiesler is a master inquisitor assigned to surveil prominent playwright Georg Dreymann (Sebastian Koch), and his actress girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Sedeck). Dreymann is actually one of the few writers loyal to the DDR, but when the Minister for Culture Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme) becomes interested in Christa, he orders Wiesler's boss Anton Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur) to dig up some dirt to get Dreymann out of the way.
The film follows Dreymann and Wiesler, one blissfully unaware of being watched, but increasingly concerned with the repression of life on his side of the wall; the other becoming, for the first time, interested and touched by the creative world his quarry inhabits. Wiesler's life is bland: his flat is the worst kind of Communist bloc chic; he fills his evenings with simple meals and visits from prostitutes. In contrast, Dreymann and Sieland's flat is full of love, warmth, music, books and, as it turns out, inevitable subterfuge. It's hard to talk in detail about too much more, as one of the joys of this film is watching the watcher, and the little things he does to change his own path as well as his subjects'.
The performances all round are wonderful - Ulrich Mühe in particular. His character seems to be made out of ice and steel. yet he manages to communicate the gradual softening of his heart with only his eyes - a tear on hearing Dreymann play a beautiful piece of Beethoven; a gentle look at a child while sharing an elevator ride. It sounds cheesy, but Mühe plays it so well - you really do end up cheering for this ostensibly "bad" guy, especially by film's end.
The Lives of Others is quite lenghty at 139 minutes, but even though its pacing is relatively slow, you're never bored. Each scene has its place, each line of dialogue has meaning and relevance, each shot has a purpose. Director von Donnersmarck understands how to build tension without the need for the big bang Hollywood special effects: he lets his camera linger over people's faces, bodies, grey skies, Trabant cars - everything. The overall effect of this technique is to create a true atmosphere: you get the sense of events unfolding over months; you get to intimately know the characters and therefore understand their motivations. They are not heroes, nor villains - they are simply everyday people living in a time made more extraordinary by its very ordinariness.
The Lives of Others is in limited cinema release, so grab a chance to see it on the big screen while you can. It's a rich moviegoing experience that will make you sad, happy, distraught, but overall inspired that their are filmmakers out there bringing beautiful stories like this to life.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Becoming Jane
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Hot Fuzz
Sunday, March 18, 2007
The Heartbreak Kid
The Heartbreak Kid tells the story of Nicky (Keil Gailer), a 17-year-old boy of Greek heritage, who develops a crush on his new teacher, Christine "Papa" Papadoupolis (Belle Reid) at an inner-Sydney high school. Papa is only young herself (22 or 23), and seems to appreciate Nicky's fine form, especially when he's playing soccer. But as a teacher, any kind of relationship is obviously out-of-bounds, so Papa has to cope with tutoring classes of unwilling students for their HSCs, all the while fending off Nicky's puppy dog advances and her own feelings. That's really about all of the plot I can tell you; not because I'd be giving the rest away, but because there really isn't that much else to talk about - there's no real subplot despite some promising starts with Nicky's parents having a lotto win and a subsequent fight he has with his friend Steve (Nick Trenthan) and cousin Con (a show-stealing Shayne Grieve), which never gets fully resolved.
Director Kat Kiorgaard has obviously relished the play's 80s setting. The costuming and soundtrack in particular are excellent, although I got the feeling that perhaps a little bit too much attention had been paid to the musical choices. The device of linking a song's lyrics to the scene just played was clever to begin with, but as the drama escalated, I felt it undermined some of the on-stage tension, particularly when some of the songs made the audience laugh. The play certainly had its light and humourous moments, but sometimes it felt like a comedy with bits of drama thrown in, rather than the other way around, which I believe was probably what the playwright intended. This was exacerbated by the stirling efforts of the supporting cast, who - though hilarious and well-acted - really were just comic relief. Only Daren King as Graham, Papa's concerned fellow teacher, brought any kind of gravitas to his role.
For the most part the pacing was consistent, although a scene in the first half where the boys get ready for a night out while listening to some hard rock went on for a bit too long, as did the subsequent scene in the nightclub. The set - fitting in as Early Week shows must with the Main House stage set-up - was very well used, and the lighting appropriate.
Without a doubt the best scenes were the moments between Papa and Nicky, as the young teacher struggles with her feelings and responsibilities, and the teenager puts on all the bravado his hormonally-supercharged body can muster. These are nice dramatic pieces - Reid and Gailer should be congratulated (although as one audience member told me afterwards: "They need to keep their volume up!").
The play aims to tackle the struggle immigrant Australian families face to "fit in" with the rest, and while there are cursory nods to this (Nicky and Con's attempt to get a school soccer team going, Papa has parents who want her to get married and have babies ASAP), they're never explored to the depth that might give greater understanding to the reasons why Nicky and Papa are attracted to each other. I believe the film goes into this in more detail; which would make sense, with film obviously having the luxury of time and space that theatre lacks.
Overall though, this is a well-told tale of misplaced feelings of love - even if I personally have no idea how such feelings could exist in the first place!
Production seen: Sunday 18 March
Running until 3rd April.
www.artstheatre.com.au